Comment by bccdee

I believe in school as an opportunity for intellectual enrichment, but fostering interest is not the primary goal of schooling. It's nice if school can make your kid an engaged and passionate reader, but your kid must become literate—whether they want to or not. And frankly, until they can string a sentence together, interesting books aren't even on the table.

At some point, kids have to develop the discipline to do the things they need to do, whether they want to or not. Carrots are better than sticks, but in the real world there are a lot more sticks than carrots.

I was a passionate and interested kid. I had a lot of boring classes in high school, but I worked hard at them anyway, even when I didn't give a shit. I got good grades because I knew bad grades could jeopardize my future. That was my stick; kids who don't take that seriously might need a different one, but ultimately you can't keep them going with carrots forever. It's good if they can be intrinsically motivated, but kids often will not be, and they need to do things anyway.